Betty Bronson - Bronson, The Media and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr

Bronson, The Media and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr

Bronson was always rather reclusive with the press, but she did get some attention after being seen with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.. He had his first childish crush on her, and as he remembered in his autobiography The Salad Days, he stated:

"Another important picture had just started. It was Peter Pan, directed by a clever caricature of a wildly temperamental movie director, Herbert Brenon. After exhaustive tests, Betty Bronson, a pretty and gifted girl in her middle teens, was given this famous role... I fell for Betty! It was my first intensely juvenile, deep-sighs-and-bad-sonnets love. It was not fully requited. She only flirted with me. My rival was a fellow in his twenties, a newspaperman who was to become one of New York's most respected theater critics, Richard Watts, Jr. ...In any event, I was so smitten with Betty, I could think of little else, except when I could call on her, even though her overprotective mother was always just in the next room."

In any case, it is known that Bronson kept all of his letters, bad sonnets and all, and she spoke of him fondly until her dying day.